Chapter 2 The Legal Doctrine of Finders Keepers
The Legal Doctrine of Finders Keepers
“Could I carry off ‘blonde’?”
Bree had a People magazine pressed against her skull, her brows pulled into a hard line as though she were asking for the nuclear codes and not soliciting an opinion on the hair she couldn’t dye because she was still very much pregnant.
She and Lainey had taken Gran to the real estate lawyer Bree had recommended to sort out the whole “unjust eviction from the home her grandmother had owned for the last twenty years and was now rightfully Lainey’s” situation.
Except for the crowded mahogany furniture, the beige-y walls of the waiting area appeared vaguely medical.
Lainey tried to recall whether the space used to be her old optometrist’s office or if that had been somewhere else in this strip mall between the H&R Block and a store that sold only candy and cheese.
It was yet another Timber Creek unholy retail marriage, but damn it if it wasn’t a convenient one-stop shop during the holidays.
Lainey got all of her candy from there. And a lot of her cheese.
Lainey avoided accountants and lawyers as a rule, namely because she tended to take liberties when reporting her income and wasn’t sure she wanted someone in her orbit who knew enough about a 1040 tax form to notice.
And though she had no objections to lawyers in the general sense, the single legal professional she knew personally had a few objections to her.
The prospect of meeting another lawyer when she currently held a one hundred percent disapproval rating within the vocation had Lainey understandably on edge.
Gran analyzed the magazine image Bree held and then Bree herself. “You don’t want to be blond, sweetie. People expect blondes to be happy all the time. They won’t allow you to be anything else. You’re much too interesting to be limited that way.”
Lainey considered her grandmother’s own immovable bob. “You’re a blonde.”
Gran patted her hair with bedecked fingers, the scarlet fringe of her coat bobbing. “I’m an icy blonde, dear. It couldn’t be more different. Stop jiggling your leg.” She placed her hand on Lainey’s knee.
Lainey cycled through the options for a person who was too anxious to sit still. She cracked her knuckles, she fussed with her bangs, and finally, she pulled out her phone. There were no new messages since her morning text exchange with Olive Rain Jacket Guy.
Elliot: Now that I know the value of Norm’s urinal marketing, I’m wondering if a restaurant I saw advertised there is very good or very bad.
Lainey: Placement in Norm’s bathroom more often correlates to a business’s desperation than its quality.
Lainey: What’s the restaurant?
Elliot: Jorg’s Schnitzel Emporium.
Lainey: Jorg’s name is actually Justin.
Elliot: Does Justin make a good schnitzel?
Lainey: Don’t know about the schnitzel, but his “German” meatballs are from IKEA.
Elliot: Back to the drawing board then.
Elliot: I think we can do better than Jorg’s/Justin’s. My only requirement is no TVs. I don’t do restaurants with TVs.
Bree lowered the magazine. “I can’t tell if I want to look like Sabrina Carpenter or date her.”
In an effort to stop fidgeting, Lainey stood up. “You know you’re pregnant with Colin’s baby. Your husband.”
“Did you know that you can smell everything when you’re pregnant? Like everything. And men are always sweating and eating cheese and onion chips. It’s disgusting.”
Lainey frowned. “Can you ask him to stop eating chips?”
“It’s not just the chips.” Bree rolled her eyes, flipping her magazine pages with a flourish.
Lainey waited for her friend to offer some explanation to her latent rage at the invocation of Colin, the perfectly nice-seeming British man she married the instant he impregnated her because her only earthly fear was disappointing her parents, but she didn’t.
Bree had always fancied herself a protagonist in a zany romantic comedy.
When she met her now husband in London while completing a high-end hospitality certificate—in her latest attempt at impressing her eternally unimpressible parents—she’d sought out a Notting Hill–style ending.
Despite her best efforts, she’d unwittingly been cast in the lesser-known Hugh Grant film Nine Months.
Lainey hardly knew Colin—apart from the way his UK fashion sensibilities made him stick out in Timber Creek like an impeccably well-appointed sore thumb.
Though she believed him to be faithful, Bree was early in her pregnancy and deep within whatever phase produced vivid dreams of her brand-new husband cheating on her. Repeatedly and ambitiously.
Naturally, Bree was seeking counsel from life coaches, sound bath practitioners, and other mystics of variable repute.
Despite multiple interventionists, Colin remained relegated to the guest room and Bree managed her cortisol levels by donating outfits he wore while philandering in her imagination to Goodwill.
The newly minted Foyle family was entirely responsible for the unusual uptick in Barbour among rural Wisconsin thrift shops.
Several more minutes passed. Lainey paced the waiting room nervously while clawing at the plastic wrapper of a cheese stick like an industrious raccoon.
“Where is this guy?” she asked no one in particular. No one was listening. Bree had become riveted by an article on Mariah Carey, and Gran was lightly sucking on a Rolo.
Somewhere on the other side of eighty Gran had taken to shoplifting “in protest” of either ageism or sexism.
It didn’t make sense, but Gran was old and Lainey figured she’d earned the right to be a little intellectually inconsistent.
Lainey had convinced Gran to attend this meeting only after agreeing to drive her to the pharmacy first to steal Rolos.
Unfortunately for Lainey, the Rolos had not been quite enough to get Gran through the door after all.
Gran was even more wary of lawyers than Lainey was, as she was also a bit ethically wobbly—exhibit A, the chocolate-caramel loot she was currently savoring.
So Lainey had upped the ante and now owed Gran an afternoon of bingo at the VFW where Gran had once directed an all-male revue.
Gran was an “old-fashioned broad.” She’d been born and raised in Timber Creek but left sometime in her early twenties for New York City in search of stardom.
According to her stories, before she’d even settled on a place to stay, she’d charmed a Greek shipping heir and convinced him to whisk her away to his private island off the coast of Santorini.
Then she promptly ditched the rich stiff, but only after he’d gifted her enough extravagant jewelry to pay her way to Paris, where she’d spent the next fifteen years as a dancer.
Gran loved to hold court at a dinner party, telling tales from the past. She’d never had it easy, but she had a way of romanticizing the life she’d lived.
Each time she told a story, it became more vibrant than the last, like colorizing an old black-and-white screwball comedy. She knew how to light up a room.
But sometimes, when she and Lainey were alone, she’d tell the real story, with all its dark shadows and blemishes.
Lainey suspected it was her way of preparing her only granddaughter for the world and how unkind it could be to bold women.
How it was really the Greek shipping heir who had drawn Gran in, but once they’d landed in Santorini, he’d turned volatile and controlling.
How the ocean views on his extravagant private island suffocated her, pressing in on all sides like prison walls.
Eventually, she found a little cash in one of the guest room chests and bribed a maid to get her off the island.
I didn’t even stop to breathe until I could see the lights on the Eiffel Tower, she’d said once. But that wasn’t the version of the story Gran liked best.
Lainey always imagined she’d find herself in France someday, but life had taken other turns.
“I think Mark must be running behind,” Bree answered.
Lainey choked on a bite of cheddar. “I’m sorry. Mark Sheffield is your ‘lawyer friend’ who’s going to save my house?”
“Who did you think it would be?” Bree inquired, a little annoyed.
“Maybe not your ex-boyfriend who’s still convinced I tried to kill him?”
Mark Sheffield had dated Bree for about four months two years ago.
Mark was a frail man, both physically and emotionally.
He reminded Lainey of one of those medically fragile dogs women carted around in strollers and administered medication to via eyedropper.
His expression was permanently sour, which she imagined was the result of the slew of allergies that’d made the outside world physically hostile toward him.
More often than not, he was sporting a temporary splint.
Lainey hadn’t minded Mark, as far as Bree’s significant others went. He’d treated her well and had occupied almost none of her time (on account of all the ailments).
But after a confusing incident involving the two of them, an expired EpiPen, carrot cupcakes, and a Razor scooter, Mark Sheffield was convinced that Lainey Davis had tried to end his life. The basket of pears she’d sent as an apology—another allergen, apparently—had only deepened his conviction.
Bree sighed and closed the magazine like an overextended soccer mom. “If I offer you money to hire a different lawyer, will you take it?”